I Was Made For Loving You
by Athena Alexandria
Summary: Set after the flashforwards in There's No Place Like Home Part 1. Slightly AU. At Christian's wake, Kate discovers that there's still a lot she doesn't know about Jack.


Thank you all so much for your reviews. :)

I was really pleased with the response to Waiting. So pleased in fact that I decided to take your advice and reward you with a (kind of) follow up, set during Christian's wake. Carol (the new, new Michael) never showed up with the bombshell about Claire so it's slightly AU but I'm pretty sure no one will mind. ;)

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I WAS MADE FOR LOVING YOU

The only thing worse than being at his father's funeral was having to stay for the wake, Jack thought as he shook hands with yet another well-intentioned stranger.

He'd spent the last hour circling his parents' living room, listening to family friends and relatives that he hadn't seen since he was a child tell stories in which his father was the hero – always stronger, braver, less fallible than in real life – when there was only one person that he wanted to talk to.

He wasn't sure when he'd be able to get her alone again, so he'd insisted on driving her and Aaron there from the church.

He could still see the look on her face as she followed him inside the foyer of the palatial house where he'd lived for almost half his life; where his mother now lived alone.

"_You really grew up here?" she asked, her eyes wide, the heels of her pumps clacking against the floorboards as she turned in a slow circle, taking it all in. "It's so…"_

"_So what? Pretentious?" he supplied in case it was putting her off. The last thing he wanted was for her to get it into her head that he thought he was better than her, or anyone else._

_He relaxed when she burst into peals of laughter. "I was gonna go with _big_, but pretentious works too." She raised her brow at him, her lips quirking with amusement and he found himself laughing along with her._

_It had been one of the longest, most draining days of his life – apart from his father's death, the only thing that even came close was the day of the rescue – but somehow having her there beside him made it bearable. He could endure anything if it meant getting to be with her, and he had._

"_I don't think I ever got the chance to thank you for coming today."_

"_Are you kidding?" she said, her own voice growing soft, sincere as she caught his hand and squeezed it with her free one. "There's no way I would've missed it. I know how hard this's been for you."_

He wasn't able to ask her what she meant by this because at that moment that he was called on to accept a string of condolences, watching with a heavy heart as shot him a sympathetic look and faded into the background with Hurley, Nadia and Sayid.

It was another hour before he ran into her again on the deck, Aaron dozing in his blanket against her chest.

"He looks like he's got the right idea," he told her with a weary sigh, wishing that he could do the same. "I guess all the excitement wore him out."

"Yeah." She followed his gaze down to the infant, her expression softening into an affectionate smile as she stroked his scalp with her thumb, and he couldn't help noticing that each time he saw her she looked more like a mother. "Is there somewhere I can put him down?"

She didn't seem to want to leave yet, which was fine with him because he wasn't ready to see her go. "There's a guest room upstairs. He should be okay in there," he told her, grateful for the excuse to sneak off with her for a few uninterrupted minutes alone.

He put his hand on her elbow, all of his nerve endings coming alive at the feel of her bare skin beneath his fingers. "Come on, I'll show you where it is."

Upstairs, he watched her fuss over Aaron, laying him in the centre of the queen-sized mattress and grazing his forehead with her lips. He looked so tiny dwarfed by the enormous bed that Jack chuckled, drawing a frown from Kate, who didn't seem to share his amusement.

"Are you sure this is safe?" she asked, eyeing him with a dubious look as she adjusted his blanket. "I wouldn't want him to roll…"

Even if he did, Jack wasn't convinced that he'd make it close enough to the edge to come to any harm, but her concern was so genuine, so endearing that he decided to humour her.

He collected the pillows from the top of the bed, arranging them so that they formed a kind of blockade around him. "There. I'd like to see him get out of _that_."

When he glanced up at her she was smiling, a kind of smile that he'd never seen her give before. It made him self-conscious, afraid that he was the one who was being paranoid now. "What?"

As he pulled the door half shut behind them so that they would still be able to hear him when he woke up, he waited for her to provide some kind of explanation, but she just shook her head, refusing to clue him in on whatever she was thinking.

Her attention shifted to the row of closed doors that stretched along the landing and up the hall as they headed back to the stairs.

"Which one's yours?" she asked, whether to deflect his question or because she was curious he couldn't tell.

"Last one on the right," he told her, surprised when, with an impish grin, she detoured towards it, turning the handle and opening it before he could stop her.

"So this is where it all began…" she said when he entered on her heels, surveying her surroundings with the kind of awed expression he'd come to associate with people in museums. It made him feel awkward, like it was his life under glass as he waited to see what she would make of it.

"It's so neat." She rolled her eyes, shooting him a sidelong glance. "Why am I not surprised?"

This broke some of the tension between them; he found himself grinning back at her until she covered her mouth, her eyes trained on something behind him.

"_Kiss_?"

He turned to see her staring at the poster tacked over his desk. Until that moment he'd forgotten that it was even still there. "What's wrong with them?" he asked her, determined to stay cool. He couldn't imagine that at fifteen her taste in music was much better.

She shrugged, hiccoughing as she tried to reign in her laughter. "Nothing, I just wouldn't pick you for a fan."

In truth he was never _that_ into them – Marc was the one with all their records – but it pissed his dad off and that was what made it fun. Small acts of subversion like this were the closest he'd ever come to rebellion. He considered explaining this to her, but thought better of it. She'd only see it as a denial and insist that he was protesting too much.

"There's a lot you don't know about me, Kate," he deadpanned instead.

She smirked as she returned to cataloguing each of the items on the desk. "Clearly."

She ran her finger along the spines of the books lined up on the shelf, concentrating on reading each of the titles. "So did you go to concerts? 'Cause I can just see you in the full Gene Simmons make up…"

She was watching him out of the corner of her eye, waiting to see what reaction she would get.

"You're really enjoying this, aren't you?" he complained, sinking onto the edge of the mattress. He loved seeing her this carefree, so for now he would let her have her fun, until he could find a way to get back at her.

"Yep," she agreed happily, thumbing through an old Biology textbook that, if he remembered correctly, Marc had spent most of junior year filling with rude pictures. He hoped she didn't think that it was his handiwork.

"You're just lucky we're not on the island or else the whole camp would know." She fixed him a disapproving look as she held up one of the drawings for him to see, her lips twisting into a wicked grin when she turned the page. "In fact I might _still_ tell Hurley. I'm sure he'd get a kick out of hearing it."

"You wouldn't!" he insisted, feigning horror and she laughed.

"You're right, I wouldn't," she allowed as she slid it back alongside the others, "but only because I wouldn't want him to lose all respect for you."

Her inspection of the desk complete, she moved on to a row of shelves mounted on brackets over the dresser. "So what other deep, dark secrets is the great Dr. Shephard hiding?" she mused aloud, picking up a framed picture from the day of his high school graduation.

"This your girlfriend?" she asked, tapping the glass with her finger as she singled out a blonde girl who's name he couldn't recall. "She's pretty." Her tone was mild, as though she were trying not to sound too interested, and for a moment he wondered if she was jealous.

He could have played along to see if she was, but he decided to put her out of her misery. "No, she was just a friend," he explained. "She was actually going out with my best friend, Marc, when that picture was taken." He pointed him out so that she could match a face to the name. "That's him there. The redhead."

She returned it to the shelf, avoiding his eyes. "What about you?" she asked softly.

He stared at her, confused. "What about me?"

"You were good looking, athletic—" He watched her gaze travel from a collection of trophies, to an engraved medallion displayed alongside the pictures, her voice dropping, apparently impressed "—valedictorian. You must've been seeing someone."

"You mean in between track meets and studying for algebra finals?" he reminded her, letting out a self-deprecating laugh.

"Are you telling me you never dated in high school?" she insisted, turning back to him, her expression slightly incredulous, and he wondered if he should take this as an insult.

He didn't want her to think that he was a complete loser; that he couldn't get a girlfriend if he'd really wanted to, which he hadn't back then. "Oh, I _dated_, I just didn't have time for anything serious."

"And these girls, they just let a guy like you go?"

It wouldn't be the first time that she'd tried to put him on the spot, but something about the way she was looking at him made his heart speed up. "When you put it like that, what's wrong with them?" he agreed with a modest laugh, even less certain that she was just messing around when she failed to keep eye contact with him.

"These girls you went out with – you ever bring any of them up here?" she asked, her expression a little too neutral, her voice a little too casual to convince him that she didn't care.

"And risk my father telling them what a lousy boyfriend I'd be?" He realised that this wasn't something he should be saying on the day of his father's funeral when he caught her wary look.

"No, I'm pretty sure none of them ever made it over the threshold," he added, letting it go for now, even though deep down he knew that it was the truth. It was hard enough feeling inadequate, without having to feel inadequate in front of someone that you were trying to impress.

"So I guess _I_ must be pretty special then, huh, for you to allow me into your inner sanctum like this?" she said, and this time, he could hear the hope that shone through her airy tone.

If only she knew that she was so much more than that. That even combined those girls had nothing on her, on the way he felt about her, and the way she made him feel when he was with her.

He didn't know what to tell her, what she expected to hear, so he cleared his throat, which had gone dry the moment he realised that the conversation had gone past light-hearted teasing.

"We should probably get back," he told her, feeling like a coward when he registered the disappointment in her eyes, but before he could figure out a way to make up for it, she knelt between his legs on the edge of the bed, cupping his jaw in her palms and kissing him hard on the mouth.

It took a moment for the shock to wear off and then he could taste the fruity tang of her lip gloss, the wine on her tongue, and something that he recognised from the last time, something unmistakably _Kate_.

It was so real and yet so much like he'd imagined that he never wanted it to end.

When she finally released him, her cheeks were flushed with exertion and what he hoped was even half the happiness that he felt.

"Wow," was all he managed to choke out as he struggled to reclaim his breath.

Her smile grew, and he thought she looked proud of the debilitating effect her kiss was having on him as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

Her lip gloss was smudged, and when he snuck a peek at himself in the mirror he could see the matching telltale pink smear.

"Now if anyone asks you can tell them you at least got to first base," she explained as she straightened, tucking her hair behind her ears and smoothing out the front of her dress.

He continued to sit there for a moment, dazed, pressing his fingers to his lips with what he knew must be a goofy grin, feeling every bit like the love struck teenager that it was meant for.

"Come on, let's go back downstairs before someone comes looking for us," she insisted, all seriousness again, holding her hand out to help him up, but as he followed her out into the hall, closing the door behind them, he could hear her singing softly under her breath:

"_I was made for lovin' you, baby, you were made for lovin' me. _

_And I can't get enough of you, baby, can you get enough of me…"_

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Why Kiss? You might ask...

Because I needed a band that was popular in the late seventies / early eighties when Jack was a teenager and for some reason the idea really amused me. ;)


End file.
